


your string of lights is still bright to me

by stydiasforever



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, I suck at tagging, Stiles Stilinski Feels Guilty, post 3b, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 07:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2573123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stydiasforever/pseuds/stydiasforever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe it was because she missed him, or maybe it was because she was just worried about him. Maybe it was even partly because she had been falling for him before everything got really bad, and whether she liked it or not, those feelings were still there months later. Either way, it had resulted in Lydia knocking on Stiles’ door at one o’clock in the morning. (Title from Innocent by Taylor Swift.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	your string of lights is still bright to me

Lydia walked up the front steps of the Stilinski house, her heels clacking against the pavement, still wet from the evening’s rain. She paused for a moment, building up enough courage to knock on the wooden door.

She hadn’t talked to Stiles since Allison’s funeral. Well, she hadn’t _really_ talked to him, anyways. Obviously they’d interacted; it was impossible to avoid each other completely. But, really, Lydia hadn’t been trying to avoid him at all-it was the other way around. The only reason she didn’t take it personally was because Stiles wasn’t just avoiding _her._ He was avoiding everyone.

She banged her knuckles against the door three times, just loudly enough for Stiles to hear if he was upstairs (which he most likely was considering the time of night.) His father’s car was absent from the driveway, meaning that he was either working late or had finally decided to go out on a Friday night. Lydia hoped that it was the latter; she knew that he rarely did anything for his own benefit, and he deserved to have a good time once in a while more than anyone.

Just when Lydia was about to turn around and go home, accepting that Stiles didn’t want to see her and nothing she could say or do would change that, the door opened.

“Lydia?”

Stiles stood in the doorway, looking at her like he wasn’t sure if she was really there or merely an illusion. To sum up his demeanor in one word, he looked _exhausted;_ both physically and mentally. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, unsure of what to say.

“Um, hi,” she said. She tried smiling, but it just didn’t feel appropriate for the situation.

“What are you doing here?” His voice wasn’t harsh or rude, but it wasn’t the warm, kind tone that she was used to either.

Truthfully, she didn’t have an answer to his question. Maybe it was because she missed him, or maybe it was because she was just worried about him. Maybe it was even partly because she had been falling for him before everything got really bad, and whether she liked it or not, those feelings were still there months later. Either way, it had resulted in Lydia knocking on Stiles’ door at one o’clock in the morning.

 “I wanted to talk.”

Stiles raised an eyebrow at her. Perhaps he was wondering why after months of silence, she had suddenly decided that it was time to talk. Truthfully, she was wondering the same thing. Whatever Stiles was thinking, he still stepped to the side and gestured for her to come in.

“Do you, uh, want something to drink?” Stiles asked, walking into the kitchen and opening the fridge. “Water, juice, coffee, tea-”

“Coffee would be great,” Lydia interjected, sitting down at the dining table and slipping off her black coat so she wore only a lace dress.

She felt more comfortable than she’d expected to, but she supposed that made sense considering the Stilinski household had been like her second home for months when she and Stiles had started getting close.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” Stiles asked as he poured two mugs of coffee, one for her and one for himself, and added milk and sugar to the one on the right. He passed her that one, and she smiled at him gratefully, knowing before she took a sip that it would be perfect. He knew that she normally took one sugar, but he always gave her two anyways.

“I wanted to talk about you,” Lydia said after a few moments had passed. “You’ve been so distant lately. You hardly ever speak to me or Scott or anyone for that matter, you never leave the house except for school and I can’t remember the last time I heard you laugh. I’m _worried,_ Stiles.”

Stiles froze, his face going pale. He avoided her gaze, bowing his head so that his eyes made contact with the ground. Guilt was etched in his face, his expression one of shame.

“It’s not that I don’t want to see you,” he replied, speaking as though every word was painful to say. “I just thought, after everything, you-well, all of you-wouldn’t want to see me.”

Considering the fact that she was a genius, Lydia felt like a complete idiot in that moment. She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t realized it already. Stiles was doing what he always did, he was being exceedingly selfless. He was putting his friends’ feelings before his own; assuming that they wouldn’t want to see him anymore as a result of the fact that a psychopathic Japanese demon had possessed his body and ultimately killed the love of his best friend’s life. She had been incredibly stupid to think that Stiles wouldn’t feel like somehow he was responsible for all the chaos the Nogitsune had caused, including the death of Lydia’s best friend and the love of Stiles’ best friend’s life.

“Stiles-”

“I know what you’re going to say, Lydia,” Stiles interrupted her before she had the chance to try to reassure him. “But this _was_ my fault, and I know that you and Scott and everybody else see him when you look at me. Hell, I see him every time I look in the mirror.”

The look on Stiles’ face shattered Lydia’s heart into a million pieces. She no longer saw the boy who she’d watched from a distance for months, the boy who hadn’t so much as hugged her since Allison’s funeral and whose company she missed desperately. She didn’t see the sarcastic, adorably awkward boy that she had started falling for before everything got really bad, either. This was a different person entirely; someone much more vulnerable, scared and…broken.

“It wasn’t you, Stiles,” Lydia finally managed to choke out. “Everything he did, everything he said…none of that was you. None of it was your fault-”

“I felt it, Lydia,” he cut her off again. “I felt every single thing that he did to all of you, but I couldn’t stop him. I should’ve been able to save Allison, I should’ve been the one to die. Lydia, I-I’m a monster.”

That was it. That was the last straw. Lydia was incapable of sitting there and listening to him call himself a monster, not when he was the complete opposite. He was her hero, and if she was being honest with herself, he had been for a while.

She stood up and crossed the room, taking his face in her hands and forcing him to look at her. Surprised, he looked down at her with confusion.

“Stiles Stilinski, you are not a monster,” she said firmly, despite the fact that she felt like crying when she realized his reasons for keeping his distance the past few months. “You’re intelligent, witty, compassionate, selfless, brave…but you’re not a monster. Honestly, the fact that you’ve been giving me space in interest of my happiness is incredibly ironic considering the only time that I feel truly happy and safe anymore is when I’m with you. What happened to Allison wasn’t your fault, Stiles. I know that, and so does Scott.”

By this point, she had given up on her attempt to keep from crying, and tears flowed freely down her face. He continued to stare at her in disbelief, almost as if he couldn’t believe she was really there.

“But it shouldn’t have been her, Lydia, it should’ve been _me_ who died,” Stiles repeated, shaking his head as he broke free from her touch, stepping away from her. “Scott wasn’t supposed to lose his first love, you weren’t supposed to lose your _best friend._ ”

“And where do you think Scott would’ve been if he’d lost his best friend, his brother?” Lydia questioned him, her voice desperate. “Or me, for that matter. Do you honestly think losing you would’ve been any less painful? Did you not realize that I spent every waking moment since that night you went missing going out of my mind wondering if you were going to be okay? Could you honestly not see that the thought of you dying completely terrified me?”

“I don’t understand, why are you not mad at me?” Stiles asked, looking at her incredulously.

Lydia shook her head, rolling her eyes. How had he not realized it yet? How could he not see the fact that she was so completely, irrevocably, head-over-heels in love with him?

“Because I’m in love with you.”

The words tumbled out of her mouth, but for some reason she felt absolutely no regret for saying it. She had considered several responses to his question; because she cared about him, because he was her friend, because she knew it wasn’t his fault…but none of them seemed right. She knew exactly what she needed to say, and she’d known it for far too long.

She wasn’t sure what she expected from Stiles. Every scenario of her confessing her feelings she’d conjured in her mind had ended poorly, though her natural pessimism may have been the cause of that, but out of all the different outcomes that she had considered, Stiles pulling her against his body and kissing her without warning had not been one of them.

Unlike the rough kisses she was accustomed to, Stiles’ lips on hers was a sensation she was unfamiliar with. Their first kiss in the locker room had been rushed, and Lydia had felt more vulnerable as she looked into his amazing light brown eyes afterwards (how she’d never really noticed them until that moment was beyond her) than she had in her entire life. Lydia had faced a lot of things in her lifetime, many of them terrifying and appalling, but she was certain there was nothing that scared her more than how hard she had fallen for Stiles Stilinski. She felt that same vulnerability now as she kissed him, but at the same time she felt more safe and secure than she had in months.

As he moved his lips over hers, Lydia did everything she could to get as close to him as possible. She hadn’t realized until now how much she’d missed the feeling of his arms around her, and the chill that went up her spine as his hands found her lower back could only be described as ecstasy. Her hands ran through his hair, which was even softer without the hair gel he normally used, but eventually their large height difference began to pose a problem (something that, fortunately, Stiles was quite good at solving.)

Lydia couldn’t contain the girlish giggle that escaped her lips as Stiles lifted her onto the kitchen counter, making Stiles laugh against her mouth. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him even closer than he had been before to try and satisfy her intense need to eliminate all space between them.

The kiss didn’t grow anymore heated. They both knew better than to move too quickly or to rush things; they had all the time in the world for that. They moved together in perfect synchronisation, their kisses slow but passionate. At some point, Stiles broke the kiss and whispered “I love you too” in her ear, proceeding to kiss her neck and all the way along her collarbone, the tenderness of his kisses making her heart swell.

“Stay?”

Stiles’ voice was as gentle and warm as a summer breeze, and his hands moved to caress her face. He brushed away a few stray tears from her cheek, but they both knew that they were tears of joy. For the first time in what felt like years, Lydia was overcome with an emotion that wasn’t pain or distress.

Lydia nodded, his words echoing in her mind. _Stay._ She knew that he didn’t just mean right now or for the night. She was his rock just as much as he was hers, and as long as he needed her, she would happily be there for him. Her arms wrapped around his waist, and she buried her head in his neck, leaving a soft kiss there.

“I’m not leaving you,” Lydia assured him, tilting her head up so she could look into his eyes once more.

Lydia knew that there was loss, pain and horror in their past, and surely more yet to come. But whenever she felt consumed by the darkness, like life was an endless night and she would never see the light of day, Stiles would be the beacon of light to guide her home, guarding her and sheltering her every step of the way.

She promised herself that she would do the same for him.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys liked it! Please leave comments or message me your opinion on my Tumblr, which can be found here: mcmartinskis.tumblr.com :)


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